A FATHER of young twins has described a £5 gift card sent to him by a superstore when he found a bug in a box of cereal as "a slap in the face".
Liam McDermott was shocked to discover the insect walking across his Asda Choco Hoops when he picked up his spoon as he went to enjoy an evening snack.
He returned the box to the store in Spondon, which sent it to their customer services team.
A few days later, Mr McDerrmott, 23, received a letter from the supermarket giant apologising and enclosing in the letter was a £5 gift card.
He said he called customer services which told him Asda could offer him a further £10 but he declined.
In response, Asda have said Mr McDermott, of Dovedale Circus, Cotmanhay, only returned the box and they have not had sight of the insect to identify it or how it got into the box.
Mr McDermott, whose twin sons Ethan and Elijah are still in hospital having been born 12 weeks premature, said: "To me, being offered £5 is nothing more than a slap in the face and I told the customer services team this.
"I spend £80 to £90 a week with Asda and, if this is how they treat their customers, then I'll be going elsewhere to do my weekly shopping from now on.
"When you buy a product from a well-known huge firm like them you expect the quality to be of the highest standard but this wasn't the case and the way they handled my complaint was poor, to say the least."
Mr McDermott, who also has a 17-month-old son, Harvey, said he had just poured milk on his cereal when he noticed something moving in his food.
He said: "It was crawling over my food, almost swimming through the milk, it was horrible, like a silverfish or something like that.
"I only do online shopping so had to drive to Spondon to hand the box in and raise the complaint.
"They were fine in the store saying they would send it away and the customer service team would be in contact.
"But the letter came through with the gift card which I just think, and told them, is a desultory offer."
A spokesman for Asda said it had not seen the insect to analyse and was unable to say how it got into the cereal.
He said: "We set ourselves the highest standards for our products and are at a loss as to how this could make its way into one of our products.
"We haven't had any other complaints of this nature, so this appears to be an isolated incident.
"We're sorry for any upset caused to Mr McDermott."
